When Boston Photo Imag­ing went out of busi­ness in 2005, I started going to Zona Lab. And when Zona Lab went out of busi­ness in 2006, I started going to Spec­trum Imaging.

Exhasper­ated, I told the man­ager of Spec­trum Imag­ing that his lab can’t go out of busi­ness on me, or I would lose it. Where else would I go for pro-quality color film processing?

“Don’t worry,” he told me, “we’ll be here until the very end.” I had finally found my place.

This after­noon, I biked over to Spec­trum to drop off the color film from the weekend’s camp­ing trip. The outer and inner doors were locked, but noth­ing else looked awry. Per­haps some­one had gone to lunch? I started scrawl­ing my name and phone num­ber on a slip of paper so I could shove my film into the mail slot when an uneasy feel­ing came over me. I peered through the mail slot. On the floor, there was:

• A motor vehi­cle vio­la­tion notice
• A flu­o­res­cent orange tag from the elec­tric com­pany (Spanish-language side up, but dire-looking nonetheless)
• A court sum­mons from the State of Mass­a­chu­setts list­ing Spec­trum Imag­ing as a defendant

In a panic, I ran out­side and climbed up the side of the build­ing to peer into their win­dows. The famil­iar glass-block counter was there, but every­thing else was gone.

This must be the end.